Yet another study confirms what people have been saying for ages: Stop drinking diet soda. Like, right now. Drinking just one 12-ounce can of an artificially sweetened fizzy drink per week can increase your risk of Type 2 diabetes by 33 percent, French researchers found. And given that most people don't stop at a single weekly serving, your real risk for diabetes could actually be much higher.

Diet Soda May Increase Risk of DepressionThe study, which was announced Thursday and will be published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, was conducted by France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research and covered 66,118 middle-aged women whose dietary habits and health were tracked from 1993 to 2007.

Diet Soda May Be Making You FatThe results were unexpected. Though it's well-known that people who consume a lot of sugar are more likely to develop diabetes, the researchers found that participants who drank "light" or "diet" soft drinks had a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes than those who drank regular, sugar-filled sodas. Those who drank 100 percent natural squeezed fruit juices instead had no additional risk.

Women who choose artificially flavored soft drinks usually drink twice as many of them as women who choose regular soda or juice—2.8 glasses per week compared to 1.6 glasses. "Yet when an equal quantity is consumed, the risk of contracting diabetes is higher for 'light' or 'diet' drinks than for 'non-light' or 'non-diet' drinks," the researchers, epidemiologists Francoise Clavel-Chapelon and Guy Fagherazzi, said in a statement. Women who drank up to 500 milliliters (about 12 ounces) of artificially sweetened beverages per week were 33 percent more likely to develop the disease, and women who drank about 600 milliliters (about 20 ounces) per week had a 66 percent increase in risk.

Drinking sweetened beverages increases the risk of becoming overweight, which is itself a risk factor in developing diabetes. But the study didn't find that the results were the same even among overweight women. So how can artificially sweetened drinks be making the problem worse if they're fat- and calorie-free?"With respect, in particular, to 'light' or 'diet' drinks, the relationship with diabetes can be explained partially by a greater craving for sugar in general by female consumers of this type of soft drink," the researchers explained. "Furthermore, aspartame, one of the main artificial sweeteners used today, causes an increase in glycaemia and consequently a rise in the insulin level in comparison to that produced by sucrose."

Translation: Drinking artificially sweetened drinks makes you crave other sweet things (hello, chocolate!). And your body reacts to aspartame—also known as NutraSweet and Equal—much in the same way that it reacts to plain old sugar.

According to the American Diabetes Association, about 25.8 million children and adults in the United States have diabetes—about 8.3 percent of the population. The disease is the leading cause of new cases of blindness in people age 20 and older, and can also cause heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, kidney disease, and damage to the nervous system. Type 2 diabetes—which can be controlled by diet and exercise rather than a daily insulin injection—is the most common form of diabetes in the United States.

The study's authors cautioned that more research was needed in order to prove a true causal link between diet sodas and Type 2 diabetes. "Information on beverage consumption was not updated during the follow-up, and dietary habits may have changed over time," they admitted in their report. "We cannot rule out that factors other than ASB [artificially sweetened beverages] are responsible for the association with diabetes."

Does'nt surprise me, basically putting chemicals into your body that arent supposed be there is going to have a adverse effect as body wont know how to handle em. Or handle them in a way it shouldnt. either way i think the whole diet/lighter food stuffs is rubbish anyway. want soemat fizzy get carbonated water + juice not someat thats jacked up with crap.

Both SSB consumption and ASB consumption were associated with increased T2D risk. We cannot rule out that factors other than ASB consumption that we did not control for are responsible for the association with diabetes, and randomized trials are required to prove a causal link between ASB consumption and T2D.

Diet sodas do not make you diabetic. It's the people who think it's ok to eat an entire chocolate cake with some diet soda (because it has 0 calories) who end up with diabetes. Just because you get a diet soda with your triple baconator doesn't suddenly make it a healthy meal.

Oh look the article links to another one that says:

There was one caveat: A healthy diet may help mitigate some of the effects of diet soda. Over 20 years, 20% of the men and women who followed a "prudent" diet (one rich with fruit, vegetables, whole grains, milk, nuts, and seeds) and drank diet soda developed metabolic syndrome, compared with 18% of those who followed the same eating style but didn't sip diet soft drinks. Most at risk were those adhering to a "Western" diet of fast food, meat, pizza, and snacks, all washed down with diet soda. By the end of the study, 32% of those folks had developed metabolic syndrome.

So how exactly can be diet sodas fault when people who drank it with a healthy diet weren't a higher risk for metabolic syndrome (2% can be attributed to statistical error)?

right,so drinking a zero calorie no sugar drink will give you diabetes, so will drinking soda full of sugar, but drinking the same amount of orange juice with the same amount of sugar wont give you diabetes? WHAT? this is the biggest joke I've ever heard. all these studies all bull****.

and type 2 diabetes is caused by not being active,simple as that. not being active enough will cause your cells not to react to insulin anymore. it has nothing to do with eating sugar. in fact,if you're not eating enough sugar,your body will make sugar from proteins and fat through a process called. glucogenesis. your body runs on glucose. if you eat too much sugar, then this sugar is converted to fat and stored.

the results of this study might be telling a different story than these simple minded folks made. maybe people who drink the diet soda are non active folks who know they aren't healthy so they try not to consume TEH SUGARZ. folks who drink soda are usually unhealthy. And people who drink freshly squeezed orange juice are health conscious people who exercise and look after themselves.

Just get pop with regular sugar and you'll be fine... artificial sweeteners are really bad for you.

They should just use stevia if they don't want sugar...

For 99% of people I totally agree, and it has beneficial effects on blood glucose levels beyond just being a sugar substitute, but there is that <1% who are allergic or get an upset tummy. Still, stevia's a great alternative especially for diabetics.

One caution though: if you take lithium (bipolar etc), blood pressure or diabetes meds their dose may have to be adjusted downwards as stevia can enhance their effect. For diabetics the reason is that it enhances insulin sensitivity.